


Your Gods Between My Teeth

by Croik



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), ToT: Chocolate Box, ToT: Trick - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8159161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Croik/pseuds/Croik
Summary: Once The Hunter gave Alfred the invitation to Cainhurst, there was only one way their story could end.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meradorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meradorm/gifts).



> Good Hunter taken from Meradorm's OC, [Konstantin Maratovich Morozov-Baran](http://meradorm.tumblr.com/post/132008093720/bloodborne-screenshot-lets-play-masterpost). I enjoyed reading his story and I hope I did him some justice.

He knew from the start that it was a mistake to give it to him. But how could he have denied him? Alfred had granted him nothing but kindness and generosity since their first meeting. Alfred the Executioner, the last sane man of Yharnam.

At least, so had he seemed, at one time.

The Hunter leaned against a twisted iron rail, staring out over Cainhurst's ice-capped eaves, to the near pitch black of the still lake. So high up he could no longer hear the lap of waves on the rocks. Gone were the shrieks of ghosts and beating gargoyle wings. Even the wind had dulled to a hoarse whistle through the old castle stones. It was the most peace Konstantin had been granted in hours that felt like full days, but his heart was swift and pounding against his ribs, sweat soaking into his cap. He glared into the unmoving water and hated that he could still make out the opposite shore.

At long last, Alfred emerged. His stench preceded him—miraculously so, considering how deeply drowned Konstantin's senses were in blood already. Heavy footsteps made their way haltingly down the rooftop, but it wasn't until they had stopped that Konstantin rallied himself and turned.

Alfred was both eerily the same as and remarkably different from when Konstantin had left him. The grays of his Executioner garb were stained crimson with almost no patch of fabric left untouched, growing quickly stiff in the chill, outdoor air. His helm gleamed as it shifted atop his shoulders, and his shadow cast by the moon was long and broad like a monolith. But his fury had abated. All his righteous exuberance had been left behind in the Queen's chamber, and if Konstantin hadn't been be able to hear his breath steaming the inside of his helm, he might have mistaken the uniform for an uninhabited shell.

"Oh," said Alfred with weary bewilderment. "You're still here."

Konstantin didn't know how to respond. Why was he still there? Because his legs hadn't been able to carry him, that's why. Because his lungs were full of fire but his fingers numb with frost, because his ears were still ringing with the squirming of undead flesh he'd never be able to unhear. "Did you get everything you wanted?" he asked.

"I…yes." Alfred's shifting feet dug troughs in the snow as he struggled after his full composure. "Yes," he said again, though he sounded no more certain. "I beg your pardon, I'm…still catching my breath."

Alfred removed his helm. His hair was matted down and his eyes a little wild, a little drunk, but there was none of the blood that covered the rest of him. Konstantin watched his breath in the air and was captivated by the contrast: below the neck, gauntlets bloodied by horrific judgement, viscera in the seams of his coat; above, only a man. An exhausted, foolish, beautiful wretch of a man.

"Is this where you found him?" asked Alfred. He looked down, scraping his boot across a slash in the stone.

"Yes." Konstantin ventured closer. Alfred was too good to blame him for felling the old man; it made his skin crawl. "I think...he's at peace, now." He didn't think that. He was well convinced that Logarius died in miserable despair, slaughtered at his post with his mission unfulfilled.

At least Alfred was willing to believe the lie; he nodded his thanks, eyes half lidded in contemplation. "You have my gratitude."

His face said he was thinking of older, better days. Konstantin didn't have better days, only a better hour or two scattered in what remained of his recent memory. He thought of charging into the crumbling chapel in the depths of the burning city, challenging a beast made of poison with Alfred at his back. They had made such quick work of the screaming fiend, and in the aftermath, Alfred had embraced him and laughed as if they were brothers. Maybe Alfred had been embraced in turn, when the number of Executioners left in the world totaled more than one. Maybe Logarius himself had called Alfred brother and cheered to their victories over the supposedly filth-blooded heathens that gave them purpose. Maybe he'd called him even more than that.

"We should return to the city," Konstantin found himself saying. "Who knows what's become of it by now."

"Yes, indeed," said Alfred distractedly. Then he seemed to collect himself; he took in a deep breath, raised his chin and squared his shoulders to the moon. His gaze refocused in the present and fresh purpose hardened in the corners of his jaw. "You should go on ahead. There's one last duty I must attend to."

Konstantin's heart skipped. There was something too familiar about the gleam in his eyes.

_It's already too late for him. Can't you see it, Morozov? He's thrown himself upon the altar. Service to the Gods only ever offers one reward._

"I'll accompany you," he said.

"No." Alfred smiled at him; no dagger had ever been so tender. "You've already done more than I can repay. This I must do alone."

Of course he would say that. Konstantin hefted his axe, his fingers stiff and aching around the handle. "At least let me go with you until we're outside the castle," he said. "Unless your business is still here?"

"No, please," Alfred said quickly, and he shook himself; his robes had frozen together in spots and they complained with the movement. "Let us be rid of this place."

"Don't forget your helmet," Konstantin reminded him, and some of his desperation must have come through in his voice, because Alfred cast him a curious look. He couldn't help but duck back beneath his hood. "We cleared out most of them on the way in, but there may still be gargoyles about keen to make a nest of that mop of yours."

That made Alfred smile again, a more genuine smile that brought some warmth back into Konstantin's constricted ribs. "You would have made a fine Executioner, Kostya," he said as he replaced the brass atop his shoulders.

Konstantin twisted the axe in his grip and swung. The blunt edge of the weapon struck the back of Alfred's head with a song like a bell that might have been comical had Konstantin's ears not been full with his own pulse. Alfred crumpled into the snow. For several minutes Konstantin stood over him, breath nearly held as he waited. He watched the sweat dry off the back of Alfred's neck until the strength came back into his limbs.

"No," he said as he crouched next to his friend. "I wouldn't have." He dragged Alfred's unconscious body over his shoulders and carried him all the way back into the city.

Only Arianna was left alive in the chapel. She was pale with nausea, but when Konstantin asked a favor, she took to the floor and cushioned Alfred's head against her lap. "I'll look after him," she said, "if you promise to return."

"I'll be back," he swore. "Don't let him leave." And he stalked out into the night to kill Gods.

For what use did Yharnam have of gods now? Every member of its mad populous had been reduced to beast or blood already. What use did Yharnam have of a church with only screams in the wind composing its psalms, of Executioners when the last of the Vilebloods was oozing pulp, of even Hunters when every last wailing degenerate was already doomed to the blade of Konstantin's axe? He slaughtered all he came across, each death at his hands a shackle rent. Soon there would be nothing left of the depraved city, only a name no one dared to whisper. There wouldn't be any altar left for a well-meaning man of the cloth to offer his life upon, nothing to request or accept his sacrifice.

So Konstantin killed, splitting matted hides and translucent bellies, crushing bone and husk beneath his boots. He cast himself into the nightmares of the cosmos and tasted the blood of gods. When only old man Gehrman remained, Konstantin left him to rot in his field and returned to the fractured remains of the Church Ward. Soiled, weary, hopeful.

Maybe Alfred would be furious with him. He'd laid waste to everything the man held sacred, starting with a beloved mentor and friend. He could shoulder that hatred easily if it meant saving a good man from an undeserved fate. But when he arrived, only Arianna was left in the chapel.

"I'm sorry," she said, sitting on the floor where he'd left her. "I couldn't make him stay."

For the first time in hours, Konstantin let go of his weapon. His knuckles creaked with the effort. "It's all right," he replied. "I didn't really think you'd be able to anyway."

He joined Arianna on the floor, and she let him rest his head on her shoulder, just for a while. Just so he could catch his breath.

"He said...he started out as a hunter," said Konstantin, tracing the flow of ruffles in her wine-red gown. "I wonder if he knew Gehrman. Maybe...the old man gave him guidance, as he did me, before the Executioners got their claws in him."

Arianna hummed with half-hearted curiosity. "Who is Gehrman?"

"No one." Konstantin drew himself up and retrieved his axe, slotting it into his grip with such eager familiarity he almost forgot he'd only been without it less than an hour. "Not anyone for much longer, anyway."

"Will you return?" asked Arianna, though there was so much less hope in her voice than when they'd first met. "You ought to. You're the last sane man in Yharnam."

Konstantin wanted to laugh, but his breath caught in his throat, and he shook his head. "Yharnam has no use for sane men, even if I were one."

He bid her good luck, and she him, and he strode back into the night for one last kill.


End file.
